


Glimpses

by MountainRose



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Capwolf, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Shorts, Symbiote!Tony, oneshots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-04-13
Packaged: 2020-01-12 21:02:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18454574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MountainRose/pseuds/MountainRose
Summary: A set of shorts all from different universes and continuities, inspired by willidothefandango





	1. Chonker Bork

**Author's Note:**

  * For [willidothefandango (nagth)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagth/gifts).



The morning is sultry, hot and bright, sunshine pouring into his bedroom like the languorous cousin of Wrath.

It is this that tells him that the weight on either side of his waist is Steve. 

That and the deep, mossy smell of broken earth and bruised grass. 

“Mornin, beloved. Shirt?”

A deep, monstrous breath draws past his face, then gusts the cobwebs out of his hair. A wet, hot nose shoves it's way into his armpit and the next breath makes a hot, humid patch from shoulder to waistband. 

Tony flails his hand free of the covers and swats at Steve's giant head. The blow lands in six-inch deep fur and makes practically zero impact. The rich softness is cool with outside air and beaded with dew that releases a sweet, animal smell that Tony is now deeply fond of. 

He digs his fingers deep.

Steve, lifting his head, tugs on the shirt. 

It is, technically, Steve's to begin with, so Tony trails a hand down his chest, eyes still closed and his touch clumsy with sleep. Each button is flicked open in turn and the trail of bare skin dutifully inspected by a cool nose and hot, steaming breath.

“Mmmnah, have to let me up if you want it.” 

Steve considers this, nose in Tony's bellybutton, and licks him with just a tiny little blep. It tickles like nothing else and Tony twitches all over, finally motivated to open his eyes.

“Rude.” 

Steve is standing over him, full shift and over four hundred pounds. Deep, bronze-gold eyes pin him in place, catching sunshine and returning molten metal. Steve's head is the size of Tony's torso, and something deep in his brain still wobbles at the sight of him, towering above like this. 

His fur, the same rich gold as his hair underneath, and shot with mahogany, hides the bulging muscle underneath, but nothing can disguise the sheer size of him. Each paw could cover a dinner plate, jet black claws poking out of golden-white fur.

Steve raises his head from Tony's belly and he glances meaningfully at the shirt. 

“Right--” it comes out on a breathy sigh, and Tony swallows, mouth dry. He shuffles the shirt off his shoulders and out from under his back, all under Steve's close watch. 

The reality is that Steve is just too damn big for any bed soft enough for Tony's abused spine, so this is the compromise. 

Steve hooks the shirt on one enormous canine and slopes off the bed. The immense weight and heat of him is a shock to lose, and Tony breathes out a shaking whimper. The futon on the floor is a foot-deep traditional cotton batt, and Steve's collection of slept-in clothes is almost enough to cover the entire king-sized span. He arranges them from stinkiest to oldest, so he can bury his snout in Tony's scent.

Steve's head, having deposited his spoils, reappears and blots out the sun. Ringed in a halo of bright dawn, Steve is the most important, brilliant, obnoxious partner in the world. 

Tony reaches out, and this takes both hands, and squishes Steve's face until his tongue is lolling out and there's laughter in the set of his ears. 

Tony falls back asleep with wolf fur on his pants and paw prints on the sheets. 


	2. Symbiote Tony

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> symbiote Tony meets a special someone while they're still on ice

This host is. Cold. Why would it be cold the metabolism says '37°C', it is right here in the hypothalamus. Tony rattles around the ribcage. This ain't riiiight he doesn't liiiike it.   


Maybe the host is hungry. This is fixable. But! Tony is just new, he's only a tiny thread! A smallest manifestation out of the skin of the chest encounters ice, bonk. Tony demanifests, regretting his choices forever.    


He jitters and rattles and counts isletts of Lorenzo. Host is in magnificent shape, alive and slow and so cold. Hmph.    
Another manifestation is more successful and Tony grows a single, careful eyeball, bright blue.    


Ah. The host is frozen into an ice cube. He wips around and, aha! There is a BruceHulk.    


"Bruce, finest host of hosts, Hulk, why, why did you put me in here."    


Bruce fumbles and throws his prosthetic eyeballs halfway across the lab. Hulk catches them, and they are bent once again out of immediately useable shape. Hulk is a crude, savage symbiote and Tony does not know why Bruce puts up with him.    


"He's coming out of long term hibernation, or, ah. Clinical death, by local standards."   


'Local standards' meaning 'utterly useless' then, because Host is thrumming with life.   
"So I'm a heart-lung machine now? Such respect for my intellect."   


"Ah, actually, we were hoping you'd annoy him awake, we all have different skills."   


Tony whips around and risks manifesting both eyes. "Clint! You can Not talk to me about this. Abomination, Heathen!"   


Natasha rolls her eyes and shoves Clint back inside her chest. "He's an expert in annoying, that's for sure. Good luck with the Capsicle, Tony. See you in the morning.” She leaves and Tony flails a rude gesture at her back. Clints tongue answers just before they vanish into the labs far gloom.    


"Ah, yeah. Good luck, Tony. I'm starting to thaw now, you might want to..."    


Tony blows a loud raspberry and snaps back inside the Cap. He is invested now. Captain Rogers is a known quantity, the perfect host, and 'a good man'. Their clustermom, Peggy, had told them all about him, Tony's ashamed he didn't realize it sooner:   
The host is stuffed with delicious extra brain chemicals, and his liver is to die for.    


The temperature cranks up steadily, and enough bits of brain wake up that Tony is intensely busy delivering enough oxygen for it, and  soon there is Conscious Thoughts and Tony is having FEELINGS.    
Steve quickly tastes of fear-of-death and bravery and other terrible things that Tony swallows down just so he doesn't have to wake up feeling like utter shit. 

Sensation from the skin starts to trickle in, both if them begin to shiver. Their first shared sensation is the slow, burning slide of warm water across their skin. Tony is very, very busy, then. Everywhere needs more oxygen, more sugar, less c-fibre transmission, more mitochondrial activity, less adrenaline--

That one, Tony eats, it is awful and bitter and he would prefer oxytocin please, now, anytime. 

Steve's thoughts speed up,  _??? _ becoming  _ 'what..?’  _ becoming a deep, chest-heaving breath. 

There is water in their lungs and Tony uses that giant breath to cough it all back out of them. 

_ 'It’s ok, we're fine, look how warm I am, you'll be warm in no time,’ _ he babbles, not alone, nope, no matter that the brain is scarred from losing a symbiote, Tony is here, he will bridge it, pick up the gossamer threads. 

“H-hi.” 

“Hello, Cap. Can I call you Steve?” 

The yes resonates between them, shakes the last cold out of their bones and when Steve sits up, Tony is behind his eyes.


	3. Danger Noods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony interrupts a danger-friend.
> 
> TW: the noodle is a snake

The initial shock is electrifying. Tony whips his arm back from the brush and is almost six feet away from the hissing snake before he even knows it tagged him.

Blood wells from the bite and there's enough thick, glossy venom around it that Tony knows he's been dosed. Instead of two punctures, it's a messy, double symmetrical cluster of cuts. 

“Steve.” 

“I see it, it was on the branch you pushed away. Here.” Steve presses a hand to the small of his back and Tony, dazed, allows himself to be moved. 

It doesn't hurt beyond the sting of the bite itself, but he can feel the shock wearing off. 

The snake, still poised and terrified, is brown and patterned to match the bark. It's only visible now because it's sitting up and freaked out.

“S-sorry, friend,” Tony tells it, sitting on a patch of bare earth and leaning against Steve's shins. “I must have smacked you good.” 

The snake, apparently appeased by this, slowly coils back onto its branch and then accelerates into the brush, as far away from them as it can get. 

Above, Steve is describing the poor guy to someone on the other end of the phone. Tony remembers the training and isn't...compromised, yet, so he stays put and doesn't move his arm. The venom is trapped in his muscle, he has time. He just has to stay calm and still. 

Calm and still. 

Steve drops a hand onto his head and cards his fingers through Tony's tropical-sweat stiffened hair.

It feels so good, he whimpers and lets his head drop back against Steve's thigh. 

“Copy... Mmhhm. No sir. Ma'am. Sorry.” There's a longer pause and Tony can just make out the tiny-whistle of the other end of the line. “Yes sir, twenty minutes. Radiomics on.”

Steve hangs up. 

“Good news or bad news?” He crouches down, so Tony sits up and pays attention, resisting the urge to pump his fist against the now-steady burn of the bite. He's managed to keep his heart rate down, but ...he's on the edge of dissociation, he can't exactly keep this up. 

“Bad then good, hit me.”

“Antivenin won't be here with the helo, we'll have to meet it at the hospital.” 

“That's ... Not the worst.” 

Steve grins lopsidedly, eyes fathomless. “Good news; it was a brown tree snake, and the venom has never killed an adult.” 

Tony sags all the way and if Steve hadn't leptforwards, he would be quite happily floors out on the ground. Flopped out on Steve is also acceptable. 

“Fuck me.” 

“I know. Mild cytotoxicity, but mainly just a weak and very local neurotoxin. We can wash it up and dress the bite.”

Tony's relief bubbles up as helpless laughter. “It looked-- so shocked, Steve! We must look like giant hairless lemurs-- are there lemurs in the Northern Territories? Doesn't matter--”

Steve hoists him up by the straps of his backpack and they tangle together on the packed earth.

“Christ, Stark, you terrify the ever living shit outta me, sometimes.” 

Tony goes limp, last of his laughter hiccuping away, and lies flopped on Steve's legs while a bottle of water is poured carefully over the cuts, cleaning away the venom. 

An ant marches up a grass stalk nearby. 

“We dodged a bullet huh.”

“Could have been a black mamba,” Steve agrees. 

“But it wasn't, and I'm going to be fine.” 

“Yup. Probably won't even leave a mark.” He dabs everything dry with a towel that they're definitely going to throw away at the hospital.

Tony tilts his head back and Steve is obviously on the same page because while the angle is awkward, it's easily one of their top ten kisses through history. 

Shit happened, they dealt, and now they can just sit and breathe in the relief of each other. 


End file.
